WWYD re bedtime for 8 month old?

[squigglehead]

DS is almost 8 months. He currently goes to bed circa 7pm, then wakes every day at 6am regardless of anything else! However, two nights this week he has not gone to bed until 8pm (asleep around half past) due to visiting family (the nights were non-sequential) and though he has seemed overtired at the time he has then slept until 7am. He has still wanted to nap at 8.30 like he usually does even with the later wake ups.

The thing is I'm not sure where to go from here. I am a total night owl and would prefer to keep him up later if possible if it makes him sleep that extra hour. DH is an early bird who has to be up for 6 anyway and would prefer to keep him on the same routine. I think his natural routine is shifting anyway as its getting harder to get him off to sleep at 7 and I'm often persisting til 8 anyway!

I don't know what to do and where to go from here. He seems to be wanting to nap less in the day, too, and on his busier less-napping days sleeps better in early evening. We cosleep and I breastfeed so overnight I barely notice the night feeds (usually 1-2, if teething then more) so the issue is isolated to evenings-before-DH-and-I-go-to-bed and early mornings... This whole thing is a minefield! Ahrg!

What would you do??

I would move bedtime later. Surely if dh is up at 6am he can get up and leave you both asleep. Then in the evening he also has a bit more time with son after work before bed.

We have always had 9pm ish bedtime due to this. We both work until later so not home until 7pm earliest. We then all eat together at 7.30/8pm. We do slept so at 8months we used to still settle them to sleep around 9pm in the living room just on a sheepskin rug and in sleeping bag. We would then take into bed with us about 11pm when we went. Breastfed baby then when they were half asleep, then they slept until 8am.

This isn't a baby sleep issue, it is a marital issue. You and DH need to decide and agree on a routine for the baby that suits your life, the baby will fit in with either and be fine with it.

When you have only one child you really can make the baby's routine fit with you, at least for the first few years. It's only when other children need to be considered that this is less possible.

I have a friend who got her first in the routine of 9pm bed and 10am get up. I can't imagine a 10am wake up! Baby would wake before then but the Mum managed to merge morning wake up and morning nap into one by just not getting out of bed (baby in sidecar cot) and doing a cycle of breastfeeding, ignoring, dozing and then do proper breakfast upon getting up after 10am. It worked for them right through until nursery age.

So really anything will work as long as you and DH agree and are consistent with it.

DH does get up and leave us to it in the mornings, and he's certainly not insisting on anything, just expressing a preference! He gets home before 5 most days (his work hours vary from day to day but he normally starts circa 7.30) so he still has plenty of time with DS before a 7pm bed.

Wish I could do what your friend did FATE, but DS won't have any of that relaxing in bed business - DH and DS wake up at 6, DH gets up to get ready for work, and DS cheerfully shouts, hits me in the face and climbs on me until I begrudgingly get up

I'll probably observe him and experiment over the next week or so by throwing in the odd 8pm bed time and seeing if it keeps the 7am wake up. He's consistently had the same routine (bed at 7) for months now (other than the odd day) and used to sleep til 7.30 but its been getting earlier - 5am at one point but a blackout blind pushed it back to 6!

His naps are still a bit irregular too as he leads them. I have no idea where to start with trying to introduce a proper daytime routine though, we very much lean toward lentil weaving and strict routines and timings are counter intuitive to me!

Sorry for waffling on, I'm ill and extremely tired today...

On the one hand you say:

"strict routines and timings are counter intuitive to me"

and at the same time are saying:

"He's consistently had the same routine (bed at 7) for months now"

As a comparison I am openly and happily routine and structure obsessed in our family life. But bedtime is one of those that happens when DD is tried rather than according to the clock. It is broadly routine (like naps and meals) but only loosely, with an hours tolerance or so. So she will go to bed some point between 7pm and 8pm.

So the routine-mad Mum that I am has a less strict bedtime than the lentil-weaving Mum you are!

It's funny because my friend (who is a fantastic Mum and one of my closest friends, still 10 years on) used to say things like how much she disliked routines and was an Earth-Mother baby-led kind of parent. But the baby-led-no-routine ideology was strategically ignored sometimes. She was completely different with her second and very routined.

Ah no, he arranged the bedtime thing himself you see I was perfectly happy to go with the flow and he slept downstairs in the evening from birth. Then started sleeping downstairs in the evening (on the sofa) consistently from about 7 every night. Then about two months ago he started being tired and fussing at 7 but not settling downstairs and getting in a tiz - turned put he wanted to go to bed and settled straight away when taken upstairs! So we had no choice there, he wants to go to bed at bed time the weirdo...

Its a chicken and egg situation.

You do things in a routine way, like always going to bed at 7pm, and although it may start in a baby-led way it becomes routine and is perpetuated by routine so that baby is always tired at 7pm.

That's how all good routines come into being. DD's routine was led by her from being tiny, just extended by me.

She used to generally get tired 60 minutes after waking so I always put her to sleep 60 minutes after waking - in a routine and structured way.

Then sleep habits changed as she grew and she started always being tired after the school run 9.00-9.30, so started always settling her to sleep around then. Likewise meal times and other sleep times.

I'm no Gina Ford fan and would never (not ever) follow a routine provided by someone else. Lets call it baby-led routine. But definitely routine nonetheless.

I just realised we've gone completely off on a tangent from what you actually asked in the OP. Sorry! As you were